In reply to Ranger50 :
I miss RPS 
First message board I ever joined. So much info lost.
I preferred the BroncoII rear bar on my turbo swapped '93. Stiff enough to help rotation, but the rear was still soft enough to pick up a front tire if I was running the B2 front bar as well.
Thanks for the sway bar tips. It was on my radar, but I need to decide between keeping the 7.5 or going to the 8.8 rear end. I feel like keeping the lighter 7.5 would be better if I can figure out a decent lsd setup, especially if it's not much more than the junkyard 8.8 (~$150-200 w/ brakes).
Betsy is back home!
Chris arrived bright and early as usual, and we were able to use my neighbors lawn wall and a 4x6 to ease Pablo out of the bed. Gotta love being able to bring your own separate ride home with you!
My favorite part of seeing Pablo up close was this very legible notation:
We chatted a bit, Chris noting a few things about where he made adjustments, and what needs attention sooner (lost a front bump stop already). We're both glad we did this. I gave chris a thank you bottle for gifting the seats to betsy, and for bringing her back in better shape than when she left. We may do it again next year if I have schedule conflicts.
After taking a while for Pablo to crank to life, Chris left for home:
^^that dude, he lives the dream ;)
gumby said:In reply to Ranger50 :
I miss RPS
I preferred the BroncoII rear bar on my turbo swapped '93. Stiff enough to help rotation, but the rear was still soft enough to pick up a front tire if I was running the B2 front bar as well.
I only had my stock 96 4cyl bar and a 91 stx rear bar on mine and it was the cat's meow...
I gave so much v8 swap information over on RPS while learning the rest.... And this is on top of all the info I learned racing mustangs in the early 2000's.
Bumping solely to point bluej towards this 2.5 powered RX8 thread for bad ideas.
irish44j said:^^that dude, he lives the dream ;)
Yeah, installing nitrous in parking lots. The dream.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ said:Bumping solely to point bluej towards this 2.5 powered RX8 thread for bad ideas.
HRRM.
SO. What now?
There are some definite things that need a bit of attention for the near term use. I've been dailying Betsy this week, as I took Greta, my '04 E46 wagon offline for a full suspension and brake refresh over Thanksgiving and am still working through all of it.
- Front Suspension needs attention. Springs are too low and not enough travel to even really judge where the rate is. I suspect it's not bad if there were travel and not right down to the bumpstops. Speaking of wich, they're high on the priority list to figure out a permanent solution.
- Seat mounts need a bit of love
- Rear spring hangers need cheap stock replacements bolted in place. These are one of the few areas that are rusted somewhat bad, and luckily easily replaced since the stock rivets have already been removed and it's just a few bolts.
- Other than suspension, the transmission and clutch setup need attention the most. Sticky shifts, and some fluid leakage (hopefully mainly from the turret?). The clutch travel is atrocious. Well, the engagement point is. it's very near the top, and with only a little bit of travel from full-in to full-engage. Then there's a ton of travel after you're past the full-in release point. It makes it very challenging to drive. I had replaced the stock clutch and PP with a cheap ebay unit that's supposed to be rated for more torque (was trying to think ahead). It came w/ a new bearing. I've blead the whole thing thoroughly, including a full bleed of the master. It's like the hydraulics almost work too well. Is this because of the crappy PP, or something else? Suggestions welcome.
In the mean time, I'm stewing over the next phase of the build, which was to be a turbo setup with microsquirt. I'll probably end up going MS2, just because I didn't realize the one I had on the shelf I bought a few years ago on Black Friday from DIYAutoTune ended up being about the same price as the used microsquirt I had for this other reason. So with that in mind, and with a turbo and exhaust manifold flange already on the shelf.. of course I'm looking into ITB's and superchargers.
I also ordered a fairly large 3D printer on Monday, so things may get interesting there. I'll go into my thinking a bit more in a future post, but Betsy has two goals in life. The first is to be generally useful as a truck to haul crap. The second is to be fun, while staying street register-able every couple years. That's it. Lots of room to play in that latter space 
Spending some time getting to really know her since the work done for the '19 challenge has only reinforced how much I love this truck.
OH, forgot to add, I'm doing a junkyard run at the end of the month and was planning to try for some better cams. Suggestions? I'd like them to still work with the stock engine management, so I think that means I need to stick to one of these options, but need to verify which the stock ranger is. Still need to see what the NC miata and Focus have, too.
bluej said:OH, forgot to add, I'm doing a junkyard run at the end of the month and was planning to try for some better cams. Suggestions? I'd like them to still work with the stock engine management, so I think that means I need to stick to one of these options, but need to verify which the stock ranger is. Still need to see what the NC miata and Focus have, too.
I don't have an answer for you, but LMK when you go - I may be interested in joining to look for old Mitsubishi stuff.
In reply to irish44j :
December 30th. I go on my birthday every year :)
Meant to add some pics:
Greta and Betsy conspiring like kids on the block planning the next adventure:
Doing truck things.
Had just come from pitch black motorsports world HQ:
Back to Greta for this weekend. The entire front and rear ends are apart and all over my garage.
Glad to see you've been driving Betsy! Also somewhat relieved to hear the clutch difficulty isn't just me- it really is kind of hard to drive smoothly. I think it's probably just the pressure plate, and maybe the friction disc hanging up on the splines a little.
On the front bumpstops- yeah, it rides funny because it sits on them, but for autocross it was great! No body roll, fast transitions, predictable steering, maybe this is achievable with a big front swaybar instead? A good interim solution if you're going to the junkyard would be GM truck front stops, this style:
They come on the torsion bar suspended GM Tahoe/Suburban/Yukon/Silverado/Sierras and fit in roughly the same location touching the control arm, and they're designed to be touching down already at ride height- unfortunately that means it might be hard to find a good set in the junkyard, although any lifted truck probably has pretty pristine ones.
Also, sorry about the seat mounts- by the end I just wanted the stupid things in the truck and it shows.
Thanks, Chris. That's exactly the info I needed for bumpstops.
So I know they're hideous, but if you wanted to run wide 15" tires to lower the height and the gearing I'm not sure you're going to find 15x10s cheaper than these awesomely 90s American Racing 3ish spoke wheels.
I think they would also allow you to lose your wheel spacers, so depending on the value of the current wheels they might actually free up some challenge budget. Real world budget will probably take a hit when you find some sticky 245+ series tires for them, though.
HRRMM. Those would probably be enough to get me eligible for radwood class, even with a completely stock body. Unfortunately I have negative time available to travel to get them.
iirc your only option for a rear dif in the 7.5 is the auburn, eaton truetrac or the detroit trutrac. which are all $500+
In reply to bluej :
Well sure but I'm pretty close- just tell me to get them and we'll figure out the rest of the logistics later.
Those wheels, 295/50/15 cooper cobras, slapper bars, and way more drop would have fit right in in my hood in the 90s
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ said:In reply to bluej :
Well sure but I'm pretty close- just tell me to get them and we'll figure out the rest of the logistics later.
Hey, thanks for the offer, Chris. I had seriously considered it, but ultimately these just don't go with the look/feel I want. Steelies are most likely in my future.
While I've been slacking on updates here, I have not been sitting idly. Well, except for 3 weeks in the middle of January. My daughter started daycare, and promptly gave me every cold stored up in the germs of the place. knocked my arse out. Anyway, I had a pretty successful JY trip right at the end of the year, and have made a few other purchases/decisions/etc.. in the mean time. That's a longer update, hopefully tonight. Teaser version: Turbos, 3D printers, ITB's and some other ju-ju will be involved.
In reply to bluej :
without being too specific, what neighborhood do you live in? or nearby cross streets?
AngryCorvair said:In reply to bluej :
without being too specific, what neighborhood do you live in? or nearby cross streets?
Brookland. I think we've discussed this before, actually? Didn't you live here, or close by? You're from DC originally, right?
Also, I just made a good deal on a used megasquirt and wideband controller, so that's another check in the progress box!
Since he bumped the sale thread, the used MS purchase included:
For $150 shipped, I'm very happy with that impact to the budget. I also know who originally built it (Giantpurplesnorkelwhachereachahcrerer), since I had considered buying it from him a few years ago. Cuda had been shopping for an MS at the time, and got in touch with me about an old ms1 v2.2 I had hacked at horribly. I ended up pointing Cuda to GPS since it seemed a better fit, and I was leaning towards a microsquirt for the SMD factor (rallyx use). Never knew if they ended up working out a sale, so kinda fun to have it come back like this.
I ended up having to work at home last night after the munchkin was asleep, so wasn't able to update here, but I've finished the documentation on the recent JY trip, and started the re-organizing and updating of the build budget. I'm hoping to be able to share tonight. Can we link in google sheets so it shows cleanly? I need to poke around with that. there may be a few weird posts in here while I try stuff, fyi.
edit: oh, and this thread has been giving me all sorts of bad ideas. this is gonna be fun 
In reply to bluej :
I grew up in Takoma Park MD, off of Flower Ave between Carroll and Piney Branch.
bluej said:Can we link in google sheets so it shows cleanly? I need to poke around with that. there may be a few weird posts in here while I try stuff, fyi.
hmm, good question
[tries embedding google sheet]
edit: interestingly, it loads ok in the 'edit box'... but not on the site? Although, even the preview embed didn't look like it'd let you navigate around.
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